


A Dark Dawn

by AboutBatman (MistyDawn)



Series: Superbat Week 2020 [6]
Category: Batman - All Media Types, Justice League Dark: Apokolips War (2020), Superman - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Comfort Sex, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mentions of Past Torture, Mentions of past sexual assault, Missing Scene, Stars, Superbat Week 2020, no beta we die like illiterate fools
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-15
Updated: 2020-09-15
Packaged: 2021-03-06 14:55:58
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,792
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26470735
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MistyDawn/pseuds/AboutBatman
Summary: Between escaping from Apokolips and the world ending, Bruce and Clark seek comfort in each other.A superbat missing scene from Justice League Dark: Apokolips War-Superbat week 2020: Day 6- Stars
Relationships: Clark Kent/Bruce Wayne
Series: Superbat Week 2020 [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1851754
Comments: 18
Kudos: 85





	A Dark Dawn

**Author's Note:**

> Well this is the sixth day of Superbat week... that ended like two months ago. Oops. 
> 
> For superbat Week 2020- Day 6: Stars
> 
> Enjoy!

Nightwing gnashed his teeth and strained against the chain that kept him from lunging at the doorway. His skin was a sickly grey, and his yellowed eyes were bloodshot and framed by dark circles. Bruce felt his heart leap into his mouth. Two years ago, when Darkseid had told him that Dick was dead, it had destroyed him. It had been the final straw that had killed his resolve and broken him under the tyrant’s control. Now, here was Dick, alive but better off dead.

Starfire pushed past Bruce to enter the small cell. She knelt down just out of Nightwing’s reach and held out a hand. “Dick, it’s okay. It’s me,” she said. “It’s Kory.” Bruce could hear the crack in her voice as she pleaded with her fiancé to recognise her. Dick didn’t change his behaviour. He continued to growl and thrash like a rabid animal.

Blood pulsed in Bruce’s veins, it thudded through them on its way to his head and made him feel dizzy. This couldn’t be happening. Just hours ago, he had held the charred body of Damian in his arms, and now this… it was too much. The emotions churned in the pit of his stomach, threatening to spill out of the box he had carefully shoved them in.

He couldn’t deal with this. Bruce turned away from the scene and stepped into the stone corridor. He could barely catch a breath. It was like the air had turned to lead in his lungs and couldn’t get out.

“Father.”

Bruce looked up to find a forlorn looking Damian standing beside the doorway.

Damian went to step toward him but hesitated. “Father… I didn’t mean for him to be like this.” His domino mask was off, so Bruce could see the desperation in his eyes. “You were gone. He was dead. _Everyone_ was dead and I...I…” Tears shone in the boy’s eyes. “…And I was so alone.”

Bruce wanted to run. To run into the dark night and never return. He didn’t deserve to be there, not after everything that he had done.

He stayed put.

“I know Damian.” He stepped forward and wrapped his son in his arms. It was strange how much the boy had grown in his absence. He was no longer the small child Bruce remembered. Instead he was tall and lanky, almost as tall as Bruce himself, and his face had matured into one closer to a man’s rather than the chubby one of youth. “It’s okay, son.” In a rare show of affection he kissed him on the forehead. “I can’t even begin to imagine what these last few years have been like for you. You did your best in a bad situation and that’s all that matters.”

Damian clutched onto him, his long arms wrapping around Bruce in a tight hug. They stayed like that for a few more seconds, until Bruce spied Raven lurking further down the hallway. He squeezed his son slightly before letting go. “Go, be with her. You shouldn’t be alone right now.”

Damian nodded and stepped away. “I’ve asked the kitchens to prepare some food for everyone, as well as rooms. Please get some food and rest Father. I know you need it.”

Bruce felt his stomach twist at the mention of food. On Apokolips all organic lifeforms had been fed bi-weekly with a nutrient paste. He had been fed just three days ago and it still lay thick and heavy in his stomach. He doubted he would be able to eat anything— or be able to sleep for that matter. “Of course, Damian,” he lied.

Bruce watched Robin take Raven’s offered hand. He looked away, to give them privacy, and briefly glanced back into Dick’s cell. Starfire was cradling him. He lay still in her arms and her shoulders shook with each sob as she cried for him.

Bruce turned away. It was an intimate moment between them— one he was not needed for.

* * *

He needed fresh air. For too long he’d been kept from it. Apokolips had been a desolate planet filled with heat and haze. Then, no sooner had they stepped through the portal back to Earth, Raven had teleported them to Nanda Parbat to retrieve Nightwing.

He came to an awning that led to a small balcony overlooking the main training courtyard. The night was still, and the yard silent below him. So far it was a moonless night, the only light coming from the twinkling stars that managed to peek through the cloud cover. Millions of stars. Laid out like the cacophony of a silent orchestra. Millions of suns burning bright, yet so distant. So cold.

Tomorrow they would go to the Teen Titans tower. The computers nestled on its subterranean level were possibly the only equipment left on Earth that was unharmed enough to assess the full scale of the damage done to Earth.

The damage _he_ had done.

Bruce gripped the stone balcony, momentarily overwhelmed by the memories. Darkseid had ordered him to transport Earth’s magma to Apokolips. He’d done it without question. Knowing the extent of the disastrous consequences it would have for his home planet.

That wasn’t all. _Oh no_. There was blood on his hands. His family’s blood. His friend’s blood. His people’s blood, even stranger’s blood from worlds he would never have dreamed could exist. Darkseid had pointed him at a target and Bruce had pulled the trigger. All too happy to carry out the orders of his Lord.

Oa had been less than a day ago. He could still smell the charred flesh of the bodies Darkseid had cleaved in half with his omega beams, could still see John’s hands reaching out desperately to the Green Lantern battery. The magma had been so bright as he’d poured it on top of the lantern, a searing light, staining his eyelids for hours afterward.

He felt sick to his stomach. How had he been so weak? How had he ever let himself get into the position where he could be manipulated like that?

The clouds cleared momentarily and more of the bejewelled night sky came into view. Bruce looked out over the millions of twinkling stars. Somewhere out there was Apokolips. He wondered what Victor had done with it. Bruce had been free for less than an hour before he had had to leave. There hadn’t been time for lengthy explanations, in fact there hadn’t been time for lengthy goodbyes either.

A deep well of sadness twisted in his gut. Cyborg was the only one that understood what it had been like. They’d been bonded in a way that the Furies hadn’t been. Victor hadn’t been turned into a mindless drone like them, he’d been broken, just like Bruce. Broken until he’d willingly served Darkseid— until he’d _wanted_ to.

Victor was the only one that knew, _truly_ knew, exactly what had happened on that forsaken planet. He was out there, alone, and abandoned by Bruce among the stars.

There were the light sounds of footsteps as someone stepped out onto the balcony. “The stars are nice tonight.”

“Are they? Are they really, Clark?” Bruce said.

Clark was silent. Hands resting gently on the banister as he craned his neck to look up. “I think they are. They’re about the only thing that hasn’t changed around here.” He turned his head to look at Bruce. “Why wouldn’t they be?”

The rage of emotion burned inside Bruce. “Because they make you think that they are beautiful. But they aren’t. They are cold and they are distant, and above all else, they burn out. They bring forth life on planets, they nurture it with their light, but they don’t last forever. They leave, burn until they can’t anymore, and then they die, leaving everyone in the dark.”

Clark raised an eyebrow, the corner of his lip lifting slightly. “That’s an odd way to think of things.” There was a moment of silence before he spoke again. “Krypton’s star died. That’s what brought me here. To Earth. It’s strange, one star went nova and killed my entire planet, while Earth’s sun gives me the powers I need to be Superman. I’ve saved Earth multiple times in the last few years, probably enough to make up for the lives lost on Krypton.”

Bruce glanced at Clark. “What’s your point?”

“My point? I don’t know.” Clark shrugged and looked back at the night sky. “Perhaps there’s a balance to things. When something goes wrong, the universe conspires to set it right again. I think there’s a poetic justice to that.”

Bruce trailed a finger along the grain of the wood of the banister. “Justice. Ha.” He frowned. “I’m not sure if that exists anymore.”

“Bruce look at me.” Bruce did, he was immediately struck by the intensity in Superman’s eyes. “What’s the real reason?” Clark said.

The earnest expression on Clark’s face, the familiar stance as he leaned on the railing, it was too much for Bruce. It made him feel at home, and he didn’t deserve that. Not when others didn’t make it back. “Because he’s out there!” Bruce flung his hands at the night sky. “Victor is out there with those _monsters_.” Bruce’s voice shook as he spat the word. “And… we… I just left him.”

“Cyborg couldn’t leave, Bruce. They’d stripped too much of him away, there was no way we could remove him from the wall without killing him,” Clark said.

Bruce swallowed the lump in his throat. “You don’t understand what it was like. It was just the two of us against the world. We spent two years in that throne room together. Under the thumb of that _tyrant_. He is… was the only one that understood what it was like.”

“What about the others? Flash? Wonder Woman—”

“It’s not the same. Cyborg controlled the furies. Everything they did can be excused by that. Barry—” Bruce suddenly felt a new pang of guilt. The treadmill had been his idea after all. “Barry never had to kill.” Bruce turned to look at him. “I did. Victor did.”

Clark could see the despair in the other man’s eyes. It was Bruce’s ultimate rule, the one thing that he loathed so much he had sworn never to do it when he was just eight years old. “Bruce,” he pleaded. “It wasn’t your fault. Darkseid tortured you. You can’t be blamed for the things he made you do.”

“He broke me. He broke Victor too. We were complacent, eager even—” he laughed sharply, and Clark was repulsed by how wrong it sounded “—to do whatever Darkseid wanted. It was as if we lived to please him and nothing more. All the death and despair be damned.” Bruce shook his head in disgust. “It was my fault. I should never have let any of this happen.”

Clark could tell he was sincere. He wanted to shake Bruce until he saw the truth. Until he allowed himself to be the victim for once. He took hold of Bruce’s wrists and pulled him toward himself. “Bruce listen to me. You aren’t to blame for any of this. It was my plan that failed. If anyone’s to blame, it’s me.”

“Oh, so you sent the paradooms to Earth then? You ordered them to kill innocent civilians? You watched, as the very creatures you sent to Earth, tore apart your family and friends?”

“Bruce…”

Tears streamed freely down Bruce’s face and his voice wobbled with every whispered word. “I killed Barbara. And Kon.” He stared directly into Superman’s bright blue eyes. “I killed Lois.”

The hurt was raw as it passed over Clark’s face.

Bruce immediately backed down. He knew now wasn’t the time for this. “Clark I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said that.” There had been so much death lately, Clark had only lost his wife a day ago, and now Bruce had rubbed salt into the very fresh wound. “I think… I think I should go and lay down.”

* * *

The room was silent save for the slight rustle of the curtains as they moved in the warm breeze from the open window. At some point in the past few hours the moon had crept out from behind the cloud cover and moonlight splayed across the bed, alighting on the human sized shape bundled under the covers.

The shape moved and a bleary-eyed Bruce peaked his head up over the covers. “Clark, what—"

“Shh. Go back to sleep. I didn’t mean to wake you up.” He turned to leave but Bruce protested.

“No, don't go! I…” Bruce swallowed, tongue peeking out to wet his bottom lip. “…Are you all right?”

Clark brought his hand up to rub the back of his neck, suddenly feeling sheepish. “I couldn’t sleep. I wanted to see if you were awake so we could talk.”

Bruce pushed himself up further in the bed and swept the covers forward in invitation. “I can’t really sleep either.”

Clark climbed into bed beside his best friend, leg bumping into Bruce’s as he settled. They hadn’t done this many times before. They had preferred a less intimate show of camaraderie, all slaps on the back and intimate looks from across the room. But there had been moments where they simply hadn’t cared, when one another’s life had hung in the balance, or a loved one had fallen. The barriers each man had painstakingly put up had been torn down and they had allowed themselves to truly show how much they actually cared.

Bruce glanced at him. “What I said earlier, I shouldn’t have brought Lois up…I know I hurt you.”

Clark looked back at him. The pale moonlight shone on Bruce’s face, it made it look oddly pale, almost as if he had died along with the others. “I know you didn’t mean to.” He reached over and gave the other man’s hand a squeeze. “You were lashing out, and you accidentally hit me in the process.” Clark let go of Bruce’s hand and busied himself with flattening a crease in the blanket. “Although I’m not sure that I didn’t deserve it.”

Bruce’s forehead wrinkled as his eyebrows compressed in bewilderment. “How on Earth could you have deserved it? I was my fault that—”

“But it wasn’t, was it?” Clark twisted his body to fully regard his friend. “It wasn’t you that wanted to kill Darkseid, in fact I remember you being adamantly against it before I managed to convince you to join in on the plan. It was me— it was all me.”

“Clark, you know that isn’t true. You didn’t push the button, you didn’t—”

“I may as well have. The mission was a failure. I failed Earth. I failed Lois. I failed _you._ Bruce, you were tortured because of me. You were turned into some twisted puppet while I watched. _”_

Bruce shook his head in denial. “You were tortured too. They gave you a kryptonite tattoo for crying out loud. What were you supposed to do?”

“I was supposed to protect you. I promised you, when you finally agreed to my plan, I promised you we would succeed. I told you I would keep the world safe. I didn’t. I didn’t keep Earth safe, I couldn’t even keep you safe,” Clark said.

Bruce tried to reassure him, “He had us beat the moment we set foot on Apokolips. There was no way we could ever have known his forces would be that strong. There was nothing you could do.”

Clark let out a bitter laugh. “It’s funny, people kept trying to tell me that.” Lois had at least. He had loved her so much. They had been planning a family before the attack. In fact, the possibility of a baby was one of the driving forces behind Clark’s plan to take down Apokolips once and for all. “Yet Darkseid knew I was so useless without my powers he even sent me back to Earth. The thing is, if our places had been reversed, I know that you would have been able to stop him sooner. You never needed to have powers to be Batman, Bruce. You were always a hero no matter what.”

Bruce put a hand on Clark’s shoulder. “Please don’t say that about yourself. You _were_ a hero without your power. You came up with the new plan to take Apokolips down and you led a team that succeeded.”

“Well, partially. Lois worked out the logistics.”

“She was a good woman. I’m sorry that she didn’t make it.”

Clark could see the sincerity in Bruce’s eyes. Bruce had grown to love her over the years, different than how Clark loved her, but just as much. Coincidentally she had known Bruce first. They had run in the same circles at the time when she was a budding new reporter and he was a newly returned Gotham playboy. They’d been friends, and she had been the one to introduce Clark to Bruce.

Which looking back after marrying Lois, had been odd, considering that Clark had fallen madly in love with Bruce. There had always been a deadly sort of passionate tension between the two men, as if the moment they ever acted on their feelings the whole world would burn up in a blaze of glory. It was the type of longing that had been electrical, each of them knowing exactly when the other had entered a room or knowing what the other would say before they had spoken. Clark had even memorised Bruce’s heartbeat just from listening to it every night from across the bay as he fell asleep.

But they had never taken the next step, never kissed, never held each other in anything other than a hug. There had been times when it had been close, when they were so close to ripping down the walls of friendship, but they never had. Instead they had withheld themselves from each other, eventually moving on as the years ticked by. Clark had fallen in love with Lois, he couldn’t say if Bruce had been hurt, but he could day that Bruce had happily accepted the role of best man at the wedding.

Clark had asked once, a year after he married Lois. _“Why did we never get together?”_

Bruce had just smiled wryly. The cat had been let out of the bag, but it was too late to do anything about it. _“I don’t know.”_ He had said. It had been a dissatisfying answer, but an unsurprising one. Clark hadn’t pushed for more.

“Selina… she… Damian tells me she died a while ago. During the first waves of paradooms,” Bruce said.

 _Selina._ How had Clark forgotten? He had been so wrapped up in his own loss that he hadn’t stopped to think about what Bruce was coming back to. They’d only gotten together a few months before the failed assault on Apokolips, but now she was gone— dead like the others. He’d met her a few times, as both the cunning Catwoman and the glamorous Miss Kyle. He had seen the happiness in Bruce’s eyes mirrored in her own and known his friend was in good hands.

Clark shook his head in sympathy. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know. Gotham was a wreck, by the time I made it there, most people had already fled from the city. It was almost impossible to track anyone down.”

Bruce lay his head against the headboard and stared at the wall ahead of him. “I thought maybe, somehow, she had made it out alive. Darkseid never spoke of her, for a while I had convinced myself she had somehow avoided him and his armies.”

Clark stayed quiet, there was nothing he could say to make the truth seem less harsh.

“But no. She died. Just like everyone else I ever knew. Dick… he’s as good as dead and Damian…” Bruce trailed off. He looked wrecked and there was a distant look in his eyes, as if he was caught in some horrible memory.

“Hey.” Clark nudged him and wrapped an arm around Bruce’s shoulders to pull him close to his side. “Maybe we should try sleeping so we can get a good start in the morning.”

Bruce shook his head, ridding himself of his tormented thoughts. He offered Clark a tentative smile. “You can sleep in here with me if you want. I don’t think either of us should be alone tonight.”

“Thanks. I think I’ll take you up on that offer.” The two men nestled down; Bruce rolled onto his side to face the wall and Clark settled just behind him, staring at the dark head of hair. An easy silence settled over the room, but Clark noted that Bruce’s heartbeat hadn’t slowed with sleep.

Sleep eluded him too, his head swirled with the thoughts of the past and events from the last few days. “I’m glad you made it, Bruce. I don’t know what I would have done if I had lost you too.” Lois’s death, hearing her voice cut off, was the worst moment of his life. The second worst was finding out Kon had been ripped apart by a paradoom. He didn’t know how he could have gone on if Bruce hadn’t broken Darkseid’s control and made it back to Earth with them.

Bruce jostled the bed as he twisted his upper body around to look at Clark. His eyes were full of unshed tears. “They didn’t tell me. When Darkseid sent you back to Earth… I… I thought you had died,” the words were spoken quietly, almost as a broken whisper.

An awful sort of horror dawned on Clark. All this time Bruce had thought he was dead, he had thought Darkseid had killed Clark and discarded his body without telling Bruce. Had that been the final straw for Bruce? The reason that he had broke under all the torture— thinking that Clark was dead and knowing there was nothing he could do about it.

Clark snaked a hand around Bruce’s waist, pulling him closer so that they were in some sort of formation between spooning and a hug. “Bruce, I had no idea. They just kicked me back to Earth one day without letting me see you.”

Bruce’s voice wobbled as a tear tracked its way down his face, “I… I didn’t know what had happened. Everyday you were there, watching, and then you weren’t and I…” more tears followed the first. “I was so alone, Clark. They told me, _he_ told me that he’d killed you. That the kryptonite had finally weakened you enough that your body couldn’t go on.”

Clark tightened his hold on Bruce. “Shh. I’m here now. I’m not going anywhere.”

They were so close, Bruce’s body heat seeping through the thin sheets and warming Clark’s skin. Their faces were inches apart and Clark could see every single crystal-clear tear as it trailed down Bruce’s cheek past his mouth. The silence was heavy as time ticked slowly by. Clark wanted to do nothing more than lean forward and press those lovely lips to his own.

He wanted to lean down and kiss away the sorrow. But he couldn't there was— Clark's mind blanked. There was nothing stopping him. Here, at the end of the world, there were no consequences.

He closed the distance. Bruce was so soft; his lips were like velvet cushions as Clark pressed his mouth into them. Bruce kissed back, mouth opening to allow Clark’s tongue to sweep inside. Clark’s arm tightened, bringing their bodies flush together so his hips pressed against Bruce’s backside.

Bruce moaned into the kiss and curled a hand around the back of Clark’s neck and drew him closer. After a few more moments he finally drew back to catch a breath. “Clark…” he said in a voice husky from lack of air. “I… Should we do this?” he asked.

Clark propped himself up onto one elbow and looked down into Bruce’s blue eyes. “If you tell me to leave, I will.”

The love between them was old. It had once burned bright and passionate but now it had been moulded into something that was sturdy and unwavering. It was an eternal flame, forever flickering away inside each of them, never to be extinguished. The trust they had in each other was unbreakable and now, when everyone lay dead around them, it was only natural for them to turn to each other’s arms.

The silence stretched between them. Bruce lay his head back on the pillow and brought a hand up to trace the line of Clark’s cheekbone. “I won’t tell you to leave.”

Clark turned his face to kiss along Bruce’s wrist. Without words, he took it in his hand and kissed along the arm’s length until he reached Bruce’s lips again.

Clark plastered himself along Bruce’s back as they lay on their sides, they slotted together perfectly, each curve of their body matched by the other. Clark kissed along the long stretch of Bruce’s neck, biting and sucking as he went. His fingers curled on the waistband of Bruce’s underwear. “Bruce, can I?”

Bruce moved his leg back to twine it with Clark’s and nodded. “Yes, please Clark. Quickly,” he panted.

Clark moved back slightly then kissed him under the jaw and slid the underwear down over his ass. He sucked in a horrified breath at the sight of the large purple bruises that covered Bruce’s skin. “What the hell?”

Both of Bruce’s cheeks were mottled with bruises in varying states of healing. A constellation of dark smears that could only be two large handprints, covered both of his hips, and Clark could see more bruising that travelled up Bruce’s back as he slid his t-shirt up.

Bruce looked away from him almost shyly. “If you don’t want to anymore it’s all right.” He went to move away from him, but Clark stopped him with a gentle hand on his shoulder.

“Wait,” Clark said. Bruce stopped moving. “What is all of this?” Clark’s mind was racing. Bruce was such a proud man. For someone to have done this to him…it was almost unthinkable. Yet the evidence was stark against Bruce’s skin.

Bruce swallowed thickly. He looked almost apprehensive. “I… I…” he stopped talking, the words caught in his throat.

Clark clenched his fists. He wanted to rend the bones of whoever did this to his friend. He held Bruce’s gaze steadily.““Bruce, you know nothing can make me think differently about you, right?” he tried to reassure. “You don’t have to tell me. Not if you don’t want to.”

Bruce closed his eyes for a brief second and then opened them again to look Clark in the eye. “No, I want to tell you. It is just that I haven’t actually talked to anyone about this.” He relaxed slightly, abandoning his state of escape so he could sink back into the bed. “When I was on Apokolips, Darkseid… used me.”

The air felt like it had been sucked from Clark’s lungs. He remembered watching Darkseid torture Bruce. It had been horrible, one of the worst things he had ever seen in his life. He remembered thinking it couldn’t get any worse. Clearly it had, and where had he been? Was he at Bruce’s side, helping him through the pain? No, he had been on Earth, depowered and useless.

Clark felt the bile rise in his throat. “I should have been there. I could have—"

“No.” Bruce reached up to twirl his finger around Clark’s hair curl. “You couldn’t have. I know exactly how strong that monster was, and I know that no one could have stopped the things he did to me.”

“Still, the thought of it.” He shook his head in anger. “I want to kill him. I want to find wherever Victor but that damned plant and I want to kill Darkseid.”

Clark knew he must have looked hurt and angry and hateful all at once, but Bruce just looked up at him and gave him a small smile. “Kiss me. Please,” he said.

The fury melted away at Bruce’s low voice and Clark relented. He dipped his head and angled it to slot their lips together. They were two people alone in the world, they had lost so many loved ones, but they still had each other. They could fall into each other’s arms and know for the first time in two years that they are both safe.

Clark startled slightly when he felt Bruce’s hand rub up against the bulge in his pants. It had waned slightly in his anger, but Bruce’s fingers brought it back to life as the other man started stroking Clark’s erection through the fabric. Clark pressed his hips forward and groaned. “We can do this any way you want.”

Bruce looked at him under his lashes. “I want you to fuck me.” He gave Clark’s cock a squeeze. “I need it.”

Clark surged forward and stole another kiss. He pulled back and looked around the room. “We need lube.”

Bruce reached forward and brought two of Clark’s fingers into his mouth. He hollowed his cheeks as he sucked on them and swirled his tongue to coat them in saliva.

Clark stared for a moment, slightly transfixed by the feeling of Bruce’s tongue sliding over the ridges of his fingerprints. His cock twitched in his underwear, now fully erect and _very_ interested in the current proceedings. He swallowed and wetted his dry lips with his tongue. “Uh, are you sure spit is enough? I’m sure I could find some real lube.”

Bruce glared at him and moved off his fingers. “And where are you going to find lube in this room?” He leant forward and licked at a third finger and smirked, “I suppose you could always ask the assassins that are lurking in the hallway for some.” Bruce sucked the three fingers into his mouth.

Clark felt his face heat up. “Wait, do you think people are listening?”

Bruce stopped licking at the fingers and leant back to study them. “Most definitely. The League of Shadows is almost as paranoid as me.” He rolled back over onto his side so his ass faced Clark. He grinned at Clark’s now beet-red face from over his shoulder. “Better put on a show for our audience.”

Clark circled a slick finger around Bruce’s hole and pressed the tip in. “There’s not actually people listening, are there?”

Bruce lay a hand on his ass and pulled his cheek up so Clark could get better access. “Yes.”

Clark made an undignified squawking noise and went to pull away. Bruce caught his wrist and held him still. “Don’t worry, they’ll leave when they realise what we are doing. Two fingers.” Clark compiled by sliding a second finger in beside the first. “They’re paranoid, not perverts.”

Clark raised his eyebrows but decided to drop the issue. If Bruce was comfortable with the situation then so was he. “Is that all right?” he asked as he started to scissor his fingers.

Bruce bit his lip and nodded as Clark grazed his prostate. “I’m ready.”

Clark huffed a small laugh. “No, you’re not.” He added a third finger to the tight heat and worked all three of them apart in a bid to loosen him.

Bruce started to grind back onto Clark’s spit-slick hand. “Hurry up.” He titled his head back and groaned as Clark brushed past his prostate again. “Please.”

Clark reached his unoccupied hand around and took hold of Bruce’s erection. He stroked it languidly and spread its precum over the head. He kissed behind Bruce’s ear. “Are you sure you still want to do this?”

Bruce pressed his ass backward into the tent in Clark’s pants. “If you don’t fuck me soon, I’m going to bite you.”

Clark removed his hand from Bruce’s ass and shucked off his pants. “Bite me? You’ll only break your teeth.”

Bruce turned his head so he could level an unamused glare at the other man. “Well then I suggest you hurry up. I’m pretty sure the League of Shadows doesn’t have a dentist on call.”

Clark chuckled. After everything that had happened he never would have counted on Bruce being the one to make him laugh. He spat in his hand and rubbed the saliva over the head of his cock, making sure that it was sufficiently slick with spit and precum before he proceeded. “I don’t think I ever told you how nice your face looks when you pout like that.”

Bruce blinked at him stupidly, momentarily surprised at the statement. “I’ll take that as a complement.”

Clark hooked a finger under Bruce’s chin and drew him in for a kiss. “It was one.”

Bruce was beautiful. He always had been, or at least Clark had thought so from the moment he had lain eyes on the other man. Clark traced a jagged scar on Bruce’s hip with his finger. Bruce was a handsome man by society's standards, but to Clark he was so much more. Years of knowing the man had its benefits. Clark knew every scar and blemish on Bruce’s body. He knew that Bruce’s shoulders would freckle if left in the sun, and he knew that he had a mole behind his left knee. He knew where to look for the evidence of once broken bones, and he knew that on stormy nights Bruce’s spine would ache where it was snapped in half.

He trailed his finger up to Bruce’s pretty face and swiped a thumb over a sharp cheekbone. “You’re beautiful.”

Bruce watched him with deep blue eyes. He brought his hand up to cover Clark’s. “We should have done this a long time ago.”

Clark’s thoughts flicked over the decades of memories that could have been filled with Bruce. He didn’t regret marrying Lois, and he was sure Bruce didn’t regret loving Selena. But when it came to someone like Bruce, there would always be a ‘what if’ at the back of his mind. “We are now. That’s all that matters,” he said softly.

There was no more waiting. No more longing looks from across a battlefield or stunted words of affection left unsaid on his tongue. The world was lying in ruins. But they still had each other.

Clark pushed the head of his cock past the rim of Bruce’s hole. Bruce grunted in slight discomfort as he pushed inside. He stopped when his length was halfway. “Is this okay?”

Bruce closed his eyes and bit his lip. “Mhmm. Is that all of it?”

Clark blushed slightly. He was well-endowed to say the least. “Uh… no. But if it’s too much we can just go from here.”

Bruce blinked open one eye and glared at him. He reached a hand back to Clarks hip and gave it a tug toward him. “Keep going.”

Clark canted his hips forward more, very aware of the grip on his hip and the tight hot heat that met his flesh as he pushed his cock deeper. He groaned as he bottomed out. “Rao. You feel so good.”

Bruce rolled his hips back. “Move.”

Clark conceded. He drew out slowly, not the whole way, but enough that the slide back in was deliciously torturous for both men. Bruce was tight and his walls pressed down on Clark’s sensitive head with an electrifying sort of pressure. “Bruce,” he panted. “Fuck, it’s so good.”

Clark brought one of his hands to the leg that Bruce wasn’t lying on and drew it up so that he could fuck him at a better angle. His cock shifted and grazed up against Bruce’s prostate. Bruce jolted and let out a gasp. “There! Clark, right there,” he panted as his grip on Clark’s hip tightened.

Clark continued to thrust at an even pace, but he made sure to aim for the spot inside Bruce that had him panting and moaning against the pillow. Clark was gentle, a part of him wanted to be rougher, to unleash all the pent-up feelings that roiled inside him. But that wasn’t what Bruce needed, it wasn’t what either of them needed. The past few years had been filled with pain and violence, now wasn’t the time to bring anymore hurt into their lives.

Clark rolled his hips slowly, smiling into the back of Bruce’s neck as the man moaned with each hit to his prostate. “This good?”

Sweat beaded along Bruce’s hairline and he twisted the bed sheets in his unoccupied hand. He tilted his head back onto Clark’s shoulder and panted. “Yes,” he hissed between breaths. “Clark, its perfe— ah fuck!” Clark thrust his hips forward shallowly in a few quick jabs that hammered against Bruce’s sweet spot.

Clark mouthed along the skin below Bruce’s ear. “I always wanted to see you like this. For years I imagined it; both of us together, our bodies in sync, you below me, coming completely undone while I pleasure you.”

Clark reached forward with his free hand and threaded his fingers through Bruce’s. “I never could have known the real thing would be so much sweeter.” He thrust up quickly again before returning to his normal pace and watched as Bruce’s mouth opened in a silent scream of bliss.

“Clark! Please, I need it. _Please!”_ Bruce whined.

Clark let go of Bruce’s thigh and slid his arm around it so that the crook of his elbow was holding up the leg while his hand was free to wrap around Bruce’s weeping cock. Bruce’s hips immediately pressed forward into his grasp, desperate for some friction.

Clark ran his thumb over the head of Bruce’s length and started stroking in time with his own thrusts. He could tell Bruce was close by the way the man’s breathing stuttered in his chest and the way he writhed desperately on his cock.

Bruce let go of his white-knuckle grip on Clark’s hip and brought the hand up behind him to cup the back of Clark’s neck. “Kiss me. Please.” He applied a slight pressure with his hand as if to prompt Clark to lean forward.

Clark wasted no time in claiming Bruce’s mouth in a passion fuelled kiss. Bruce surged up into it, tongue searching for Clark’s and fingernails scraping into the invulnerable skin of Clark’s neck. Bruce pulled away. “Fuck, I want this, I want it so bad,” he gibbered. He turned his head slightly and Clark could see the lust addled adoration in his eyes. He kissed Clark again. “I’m so close I—”

Clark held onto Bruce tighter and steadily fucked up into him. “Bruce. I’ve got you. I’ve got you now, it’s okay.”

Bruce’s entire body arched as he came with a gasp. His muscles tightened around Clark and with a few more strokes in and out of Bruce’s body Clark finally buried himself in deep and came with a huff against Bruce’s sweat damp neck.

There were a few moments of silence punctuated with their heavy breaths before Clark pulled out and allowed Bruce’s propped up leg to fall back to the bed. He scooped Bruce into his arms and held him.

Bruce went limp in the hold, his muscles relaxing as he lay in his lover’s arms. He pressed his lips lightly to Clark’s and they shared a chaste kiss.

They didn’t say I love you.

They didn’t need to. It lay unspoken between them, assumed and unconditional in its worth, both men knowing that no words could span the true meaning of their devotion to each other.

* * *

The clouds hung low in the sky. They blocked out the intensity of the morning sun and caused a muted overcast sky that seemed dull and flat compared to the sun's normal golden rays. Batman stood at the top of the hill, looking out over the bay. Superman stood beside him.

They did not speak. There were no more words to speak between them, they had said and done everything that needed to be said and done. Now it was just time for them to wait.

At the bottom of the hill, near the shoreline, Barry stood up. He turned to look at the gathered group of beaten down survivors. In a split second he was gone in a burst of speed.

Bruce watched the trail of disturbed water kick up as the Flash sprinted away at full speed. The world seemed to shimmer as the land in the distance began to fold in on itself. He took a deep breath. _This is it_. He could only hope they did things better next time.

The white light raced toward them, and the last thing Bruce felt before the nothing crashed down on him, was the soft touch of Clark’s fingers against his own.

**Author's Note:**

> So I started writing this months ago and it's only finished now so forgive me for it being a bit choppy in places since some of the segments were literally written months apart lol.
> 
> Thanks for reading! Kudos and Comments are appreciated <3
> 
> Come see me on my Tumblr [aboutbatman!](https://aboutbatman.tumblr.com/)


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